Material Compare

Put two or more materials next to each other and judge them together — imagery and specifications lined up in one table — instead of flipping back and forth between separate detail pages. This guide teaches how to build a comparison, what each part of it means, what to weigh when deciding, and how to send a shortlist in from elsewhere.

1. What Compare is for

What it is — a side-by-side view for the final step of a decision. When you've narrowed a search down to a small shortlist, the question is no longer "what's out there" but "which of these is right". Why it matters — Compare is built for exactly that final step: it places your candidates side by side so you can scan their photos, attributes and specifications at a glance, and it draws your eye to the points where they actually differ — which is usually where the decision is made.

The limits, and why — you can compare two to four materials at once. Two is the minimum needed for a meaningful comparison; four is the ceiling so the columns stay readable.

What it affects elsewhere — Compare is the deciding stop in a flow that usually starts in search, Material Recognition, the Knowledge Base or a moodboard, and ends with you adding the winner to a moodboard or a quote.

2. What you can see for each material

What it is — every material you add becomes a column. At the top of the column you get its image, name and status, plus a small set of quality indicators; below that, two grouped sections of values run down the page so each row lines the materials up on the same attribute. Why it matters — knowing what each part of a column means is what lets you compare like for like instead of being misled by a thin record.

• Image & name — the material's main photo and title, so you're never comparing on numbers alone.
• Quality indicators — small bars for Quality, Confidence and Completeness. These describe how rich and well-verified the catalogue record is, which is useful context when one option simply has more (or better) data behind it.
• Properties — descriptive attributes such as colour, finish, material type and the like.
• Specifications — the more technical, measurable values where they exist.

What it affects — the quality indicators are your guide to how much to trust a sparse column; see section 5 for how to read missing values.

3. The controls

What it is — the handful of controls you use to assemble and trim the comparison. Why it matters — building a clean comparison is mostly about adding the right columns and removing the wrong ones, so these four controls are the whole interaction.

What it affects — Back returns you to the surface you came from with your browsing intact, so Compare slots into a wider session rather than ending it.

4. Building a comparison, step by step

What it is — the full flow from an empty page to a decision. Why it matters — following it in order keeps the table readable and your attention on the rows that actually decide the choice.

1. Open Compare. If you arrive empty-handed you'll see the No materials selected state.
2. Click Add Material, search by name, and select a material to place the first column.
3. Repeat Add Material until you have two to four candidates side by side.
4. Scan top to bottom: start with the images, then read down the Properties and Specifications, paying attention to the highlighted rows where the materials disagree.
5. Remove (×) any option you've ruled out to keep the table clean.
6. When you've decided, use Back to return to where you came from and act on your choice — add it to a moodboard or include it on a quote.

What it affects — the choice you land on here is what flows into your boards and quotes, so a clean comparison pays off downstream.

5. What to compare on

What it is — a way to prioritise what you weigh. There's no single "right" attribute — it depends on the project — but a useful order of attack is below. Why it matters — a deliberate order stops you over-indexing on one number and missing the obvious visual or data caveats.

• Imagery first. The fastest disqualifier is often visual: colour, texture and overall look should suit the space before any number matters.
• Then the specifications. Where measurable values exist, the highlighted differences are where trade-offs live — let the rows that diverge drive the conversation.
• Mind the data, not just the values. If one option's quality/completeness indicators are low, its blank or sparse rows may reflect a thin catalogue record rather than a genuinely worse material; treat missing values as "unknown", not "zero".

What it affects — reading the quality indicators (section 2) alongside the values keeps a sparse-but-good material from losing to a fully-documented-but-worse one.

6. Sending shortlists in

What it is — the ways to arrive at Compare with candidates already loaded. Why it matters — Compare is usually the last stop, so the heavy discovery should happen where it's natural and only the final judgement happens here.

What it affects — sending a shortlist in is the same as adding columns by hand, just faster; once they're loaded, the building, reading and deciding steps above are identical.